A major cyberattack has hit Halliburton, one of the world’s biggest oilfield services companies. The attack, which seems to have taken place on Wednesday, has caused problems at the company’s north Houston campus and affected global connectivity networks.
Halliburton, a crucial player in the global oil industry and the leading company in the fracking sector, has confirmed they know about an issue affecting some company systems. The company released a short statement acknowledging the problem and promising they are “working hard to figure out the cause and possible effects.”
“We’ve put our planned response into action and we’re working inside the company and with top experts to fix the problem,” a Halliburton spokesperson said. The company has told its workers not to connect to internal networks until they hear otherwise.
Andrew Lintell, General Manager for EMEA at Claroty, shared his thoughts on the attack, stressing the increased dangers that energy companies face. “Because they play a big role in global oil trade, any stoppage in their work will cause big ripple effects worldwide, leading to major financial losses,” Lintell pointed out. He also noted that the industry now has a lot more attacking surface as it uses more advanced and linked-up OT systems.
The Halliburton incident is just the latest in a string of cyber-attacks on key infrastructure. Not long ago, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan warned that we might see a “digital Pearl Harbor” after attacks on military water infrastructure systems, which some think came from state-sponsored actors in China and Iran.
The ongoing probe into Halliburton shows how exposed critical infrastructure sectors are. It highlights the need for robust cybersecurity measures to protect these key services from growing threats.
